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St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center – An Incubator
For Research
November is Alzheimer’s awareness month in the United
States in acknowledgment of the 4 million people who suffer
from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive, degenerative
disorder that damages the brain cells responsible for
intellectual functioning in the brain, including memory,
intelligence, judgment, and speech. Alzheimer’s
disease also leads to the loss of physical functions.
While most people diagnosed with AD are over 65 years
of age, a rare and aggressive form of Alzheimer's does
affect a small percentage of people in their 40s and 50s.
The average course of the disease from the time it is
diagnosed to death is about 6 to 8 years.
Alzheimer's is characterized by a loss of brain cells,
as well as changes in the cerebral cortex (the outer layer
of the brain). An accumulation of diseased nerves with
tangled fibers, plaques with amyloid centers, and nerves
with peculiar round granular forms inside their cytoplasm
(GVB) are hallmarks under the microscope. After more than
a decade and the expense of 2 billion dollars in research,
the “amyloid hypothesis” of causation of Alzheimer’s
has been abandoned; with the acceptance that amyloid is
an occurrence event in the disease, but is not its root
cause. Researchers are divided as to whether or not there
is a genetic cause for this debilitating disease.
St Catherine of Siena Medical Center through its Institutional
Review Board and the support of a research grant from
the Turn the Corner Foundation in New York City, has approved
a Molecular study of Alzheimer’s disease brain tissues
obtained from the world renowned Harvard Medical School
Brain tissue bank, under the direction of Dr. Alan MacDonald.
Dr. MacDonald believes that a paradigm shift in the direction
of a non-genetic cause might be in order. His hypothesis
is derived from the model of another potentially brain-wasting
disease: spirochetal infection (syphilis) which shows
many parallels with Borrelia infections, …which
are highly endemic in Long Island and around the world.
“With a small grant I was able to conduct research
on brain tissue from 10 unrelated individuals, from different
geographic regions, who had lived and died with AD. Of
these 10 samples 7 yielded “sharp” bands of
DNA. To my surprise these 7 samples produced identical
fusion DNA sequences to each other, but do not match any
DNA sequences in the National Gene Data Bank,” explained
Dr. MacDonald. “The DNA sequence that all the samples
shared was not human but spirochetal…a
bacteria that appears to have inserted itself ( by transfection)
into the brain cells of the individuals who died with
Alzheimer’s disease. Of course this is a small study
with a small sample, but what would the probability of
this occurring by chance be? Colleagues in statistics
have offered a one chance in 100 billion scenario, based
on length and structure of the DNA sequences deposited
into the National Gene Bank. These results are unlikely
to have come from “accident” or “dumb
luck”. Only time and more research will tell us
whether the antibiotic treatment of dementia of the Alzheimer
type in its very early stages might offer stabilization,
or even improvement in brain function , based on the known
benefits of Penicillin therapy in the General paresis
dementias of the last century.”
For more information please call the Office of Community
Relations at 631.862.3523.
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